Terry v. Commonwealth

This writ of error brings under review a judgment sentencing Henry Terry, a negro, to life imprisonment for the murder of Cecil Sivills, a white man, in accordance with the verdict of a jury.

There are several assignments of error but the view we take of the matter makes it necessary that we consider only one, which raises the question of the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict.

The Commonwealth’s case depends almost entirely upon the testimony of Mrs. Daisy Brown Ward. Her story is as follows:

On Sunday, January 30, 1938, Cecil Sivills, a single man about thirty years of age,…